LG OPTIMUS L5 II FULL REVIEW

Today on our Budget Smartphone Series we review the LG Optimus L5 II. LG has been recognized for their prowess with Optimus range of devices and even gained more popularity with their Nexus 4 project but not everyone can afford such devices and some people are not even interested in the specs of a phone, they don't need phones with opta-cores and 1080p screens, they just need a device that can do day to day activities without any hiccups and not burn a hole in their pockets buying it. The Optimus L5 II is this kind of device.

OVERVIEW
Out of the box, you will notice that the Optimus L5 II is an improvement on its predecessor the L5, they have really improved on the build quality as this device is made to look like its made out of  brushed metal but its still really plastic. When it comes to looks, the Optimus L5 is beautifully designed, LG has managed to fit a 4.0" screen on this device and with a very thin bezel the phones dimension remains at 117mm X 62mm X 9mm. its easily the thinnest phone we have reviewed in this category. It has a 5 megapixel camera at the back and you will find the regular keys like the volume rocker, the power button on the sides however LG added a dedicated button that launches a note-taking app this button can be customized to launch any app and if you are like me that likes a dedicated camera button this could be a bargaining chip. It also has a 3.5mm  Jack and a MicroUSB port as well. The phone is built solidly and it weighs only 103g, so its extremely light but the curved edges allows you keep a good grip on it. The thing bezels on the side, the dimensions and weight makes it really easy for one handed use, you will find the regular android backlit keys on either side of the physical home button just below the screen so you have most of your 4.0" screen real estate intact.

DISPLAY
The Optimus L5 II has a 4.0" capacitive Touch display with a 800 X 480 resolution which is a huge increment over its predecessor which had a meager 320 X 240 pixels. This are still both meager specs but as this is a budget phone or an entry level smartphone for those who are new to the world of smartphones we can hardly complain about it. Although the display is a 480p screen, the images appear to be crisp and sharper, we were able to read small text on webpages without any qualms. We also had no issues with outdoor visibility because the screen was very bright. This phone is ideal for basic use the 480p screen might not be able to play 720p media in its full quality but the display is a good bargain for its price.

OS/ USER EXPERIENCE 

home screen

The Optimus L5 II runs on android 4.1 jelly bean, LG like most Android OEM's usually customize the Android User Interface with their own specific applications, skins and tweaks to it. this can be a bittersweet experience as these customization usually takes up a lot of ROM space on the phone and this particular phone isn't endowed in that regard with its 4GB internal Memory, the OS and all the perks that LG adds to it takes up 2GB of this memory and you are left with 2GB to install apps so you would have to be very choosy which apps to install. Although the phone has a MicroSD  slot so you can pop in your MicroSD card and store most of your media files on the external card but bear in mind that you can't install apps on the external SD card.

innovative Lockscreen design

The User Experience is refreshing and not so far away from the regular Stock Android, The Lock screen is where you begin to see LG's innovation, when you swipe to unlock the phone, The UI animation starts to reveal the underlying Home Screen bit by bit until you  finally unlock it. The Home screen in itself is similar to stock android, you get three home screens that you can customize with a lot  of app shortcuts and widgets. The App tray is a Grid styled area showing all your apps and widgets arranged in alphabetical order, it is divided into three Categories which include; Apps, Downloads and Widgets. Swiping down from the top reveals  the Notification tray where LG has included a variety of quick toggles where you can tweak all manners of setting such as Bluetooth, NFC, WiFi, Mobile Connectivity, etc. without having to launch the settings app.




PROCESSOR/ STORAGE

Storage capacity

LG has equipped this device with a 1.0 Ghz Single-core processor and a 512 MB RAM. This is one of thedrawbacks of this phone, other phones in this category such as the Lumia 520 come with a Dual-Core processor. Although its an improvement over the previous 800MHZ on the L5 I still think LG should have done better. The 4GB internal storage is another setback, its really unimpressive at all. You can't install apps such as N.O.V.A that require large storage spaces because you will run out of storage before you install important apps that boost your productivity. The processor is laggy which isn't surprising  as its single core and just 512MB of RAM, swiping from one home screen to the other is stuttery but you can reduce this by using basic transition animation, multitasking also proved to be a chore as the device was really slow to switch from app to app. its really annoying when playing games and i wonder how laggy it would get when you install an assortment of applications. .








BATTERY/CONNECTIVITY

removable back cover and 1700mAh battery 

The Optimus L5 II is bundled with a 1700mAh battery which is not so impressive in terms of figures but compared to other phones in this category it holds up pretty well. It doesn't take a long time to charge and doesn't get hot unnecessarily. LG claims it can last up to 2 days without needing to recharge it we ran our own usage test and found the battery was almost as good as LG claims, we were able to use it for a whole day using only WiFi connectivity and we still had half the battery life intact. The only Setback here is that it does not have auto-brightness so that the screen can adjust its brightness according to how much light is in the specific area, although outdoor visibility is good but you will have to adjust your brightness settings every time you move from place to place or you can leave it on full brightness and pay for it with a staggering drop in battery life. The phone is fitted with standard wireless connectivity options such as  bluetooth,NFC, a 3G radio and a 802.11 b/g/n WiFi radio. The L5 2 can be connected to a PC using the bundled USB cable and this adds some options such as USB file tansfer either in camera mode(CTP) or Media mode (MTP) USB tethering that allows you to use the data connection on your phone to browse on your PC.

PROS

• Customizable Quick key
• Decent battery life
• Removable battery and MicroSD support
• Innovative UI

CONS

• Laggy performance
• No front Facing Camera
• very little Internal Storage Space
• No Auto-brightness

VERDICT: 6.5

The LG optimus L5 II is definitely not for the power user its more like a "Grandma" phone, if you intend to use it for basic day to day activities like checking emails and updating your facebook page you might have nothing to worry about but if you are interested in gaming, watching movies, installing apps, tweaking your UI beyond recognition, etc this phone is not for you. The single-core 1Ghz processor is the major undoing of this phone. we could actually live without a front facing camera for the price but the processor was just too laggy to enjoy using the phone but its still a worthy competitor to the other phones we have reviewed in this segment such as the Infinix Race Eagle, The Tecno Phantom A F7 and the Lumia 520

Note: if you are interested in any of  this devices you can call us on 07059925285, email us at technerdng@gmail.com or visit our online retail store TheSmartShopng. be sure to subscribe to our blog so as to get timely updates for more device reviews and tech news in the future.